Rumsfeld's Ownership Society

[From today's AP]

Rumsfeld laments Iraq invasion restriction

By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 6:26 am PST Monday, March 21, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The level of insurgency in postwar Iraq wouldn't be so high if the U.S.-led coalition had been able to invade from the north, through Turkey, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.

Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday" that if the United States had able to get its 4th Infantry Division into northern Iraq through Turkey, more of Saddam's Baathist regime would have been captured or killed, diminishing the insurgency.

U.S. forces had to enter Iraq from the south, so by the time Baghdad was taken, much of Saddam's military and intelligence services had dissipated into the northern cities, Rumsfeld said. "They're still, in a number of instances, still active," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Isn't it amazing that the people who want to bring us "the ownership society" because we need to take complete ersonal responsibility for ourselves until the day we die absolutely refuses to take any responsibility for their own rotten decisions in Iraq?

The insurgency isn't the fault of a Bush White House which didn't have the foresight to plan for it because that might undermine all the love the Iraqis were going to shower on us, from the po' Shiites in the south to the Sunni technocrats in Baghdad. No, there would be no insurgency, they knew, so why plan for it? Why plan for the looting of arsenals which would arm it, or equip enough troops to combat it when it first arose? And now, why not just admit you didn't plan for the right eventuality?

You know the Bush administration planned a different scenario. You know they would have loved to have had the transfer of power ceremony be a little more gaudy and elaborate than Bremer handing over the keys and hopping on a plane like a deadbeat tenant skipping out on a couple of months' rent. But the insurgency has served well in other areas. I think it was the single biggest factor in Bush' s re-election. No matter how Kerry spun it, a vote for Kerry was a vote against the war, and enough folks didn't want to change horses in mid-stream.

So I expect the Bush team to be internally grateful to the insurgency for the help it gave them in winning a second term. But for the rest of us, taking a little personal responsibility for a lot of bad decisions and poor judgment would be just a little consistent, don't you think?